Sylvie

Licking her fangs to tease Casey a little more, Sylvie chuckled as she translated the writing. “Nostradamus called his visions, quatrains.  This is very similar.”  Sylvie felt Casey begin working her biceps and leaned forward on her girlfriend. “The first line is a caution.  Prudence is cautionary, and second sight…I think means that there can be two possible realities?  I can’t be certain though, because these separate references are so far apart, I know the prophet is talking about the events that I saw, but there are things that Franco skipped over which add substance to what he wanted someone to read.”

Upon hearing the words moon and sun, Casey stopped her flirting and grabbed her hand. “Do you think the last two are about us?”  Casey swallowed hard and explained what she meant. “Moon and Sun - I think that is you and I.  We are already trying to fix the crap Alan started.  Eclipses are our signal and it says pair.”

“Don’t forget the word bracers.”  Sylvie tapped on her lover’s wrist. “Metal bands, to reform mercury?”  Sylvie closed her eyes and tried to recall what little bit of alchemy from her past she’d learned. “When I laced the blood with THC for Vivienne and Faye, I used the internet to be sure.”  She held up her finger when Casey stood up, “Wait…”  Sylvie sighed when Casey left and within a few seconds she’d returned with her phone in hand. “Hey!  You took your legs away without warning and now I am a little sad.”  She playfully shot out her lower lip.

Flicking Sylvie’s hair to cause the bows to click, Casey smiled. “Look, this is supposed to be relaxing for you.  Stressing over the internet is not relaxing.”  She winked, “Besides, I have the answer right here.”  She handed Sylvie the phone and resumed her seating. “Happy now, mistress?”

Choosing to not look at Casey, Sylvie tried to speak as snobbish as possible. “Very much so.  You shouldn’t have gotten up without my permission anyway, I am entitled to your legs when I so desire.”  Sylvie read the small screen and rolled her moon eyes up. “Right.  Mercury bonds with many different metals and changes its composition.  Question is, which one?  I don’t see a hint in this group.”

“What about the other lines?  Is that a reference to Shadewraiths?”  Casey inquired and took back her phone and then tapped a few times clearly looking for something. “Bracers.  According to this, they can be decorative and protective.”  She paused, “Where is the blood magic entry?  Clearly not written by a vampire.”

Laughing and scratching her ear lightly, Sylvie agreed with her lover. “A vampire entry would be most useful right now.  However, I am pretty sure this is completely about the Shadewraiths and how to close the door again.”

“…made of gold and bonded by zinc then blood of fang,
moon and sun embrace, imbue blood..
music once more as the demons hover at the door, lost.. Confused.
fuse and churn blood used and metal burn,
empty ring is a door no more it's song fades, it's iron clangs.”

Desperate to put all the pieces together, Sylvie finished the last set. “I need to be more patient, it would seem.”  Without warning, Sylvie stopped talking and went completely still.  The flash vision showed a woman in her thirties, under a weathered white cowl, and her eyes with swirling sands looking directly into Sylvie as though they saw one another.  Sylvie watched as the woman’s ruby-red lips parted to reveal four pristine fangs just before she spoke.

{ “You’ve learned what the others have not.  The sands of time have not clouded your visions, your magnificent eye.  The others years ago, took the book and misinterpreted it.  You see the truth of the words and know the outcome.”}

Within her vision Sylvie nodded and replied,

{ “We were never supposed to know about the ring or this door, so while there could have been a good path, the dryods picked the one that caused the worst.  I guess that is what they get for thievery…Vasia Kladdopili.”}

The sands in Vasia’s eyes stopped swirling for an instant when she heard her full name for the first time in years.

{“Impressive, Taini Miakoda.  Amos picked well.  As did you with Casey.  There will be time for us to speak later, you know this.  Just know that there are missing pages that were left behind in their original shelter.”}

Before she could respond, Sylvie felt the stinging of sand swirling around her and the image disappeared.  Coming out of her trance, Sylvie felt her third eye closing then blinked her full moon irises at Casey. “Hey there honey-bell.”  Sylvie fell forward into Casey’s arms tired from the quick ordeal. “I think I just met Amos’s creator..I thought she was long gone.”

“Don’t keep me waiting, apple-bunny.  Tell me what happened.”  Casey reached over the tub and pulled a bottle of blood for Sylvie to drink. “Take it slow, I know you are hungry.”

Without much fanfare due to how tired she was, Sylvie explained what she’d seen and how they were on the right track for what was necessary to remove the portal. “Vasia was pretty clear that the book was stolen, and that the contents were never meant to be used to create the doorway.”  Using the chopstick, Sylvie went back a few pages and pointed out where the Dryods had misread the text. “Even here, they believed that this was telling them to remove their demon, but it was a warning not to.”  She flipped to the back where she saw pages missing. “We have to find the missing pages, and they are likely in some hill or mountain where the dryods first lived.”   She flipped back to the last passage, “The bracers…gold and zinc seemingly will burn the mercury and break the ring.  Hence ‘door no more’.  I don’t quite understand the song reference, perhaps it's with the missing pages.”  She laid the book down and started to close the front cover when she spotted a list of names. “What in the…Look here.”

Casey turned and looked at the list and how it looked like a one-way family tree complete with boxes over each name. “Looks like there are four of us, Sylvie.”  Slamming the cover shut, Casey pulled Sylvie up and slid her hands along Sylvie’s cheeks. “Our night is going to be interesting, I would prefer our day be…”  Casey purred and ran her finger over Sylvie’s lips, before dipping them in the warm water. “There you are.”

Sylvie moved so fast it sloshed the water in the tub, nearly getting the old tome wet. “Yes, here I am..”  She purred.